RE: OAUG to remain Independent

What I can't figure out, is why Oracle would want to encourage fewer
conferences by rolling them into one. More conferences = more publicity for
their products. But then, I never did well in marketing class...

(OAUG) yesterday notified Oracle Corp. that its members had
overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to fold the user group's
conferences into a single conference run by the software
vendor.

According to OAUG officials, 87% of the users who responded
to a survey this month said they were opposed to holding a
single Oracle-sponsored event each year instead of the two
conferences now run by the user group. About three quarters
of the OAUG's 2,000 corporate members responded to the survey.

The proposal by Oracle's corporate marketing department
would have fundamentally changed how the two North
American conferences are run, said Don Payne, executive vice
president of the OAUG's board of directors and director of
electronic business at InFocus in Wilsonville, Ore.

But now, although the OAUG will continue to maintain a close
relationship with Oracle, Payne and other user group officials
said the conferences will become even more independent than
they have been.

For example, Jim Collins, executive director of the
Atlanta-based user group said Oracle has traditionally
managed press relations at the OAUG's conferences.

Oracle will still be free to invite reporters to the conferences,
Collins said. But he added that the OAUG will also now handle
media relations and hopes to see more balanced coverage,
with increased opportunities for users to get multiple
perspectives on issues related to Oracle's applications.

On Monday, the OAUG sent Oracle a letter detailing the results
of the survey, in advance of the organization's spring
conference, which is being held here this week.

The survey included Oracle's proposal, along with a statement
from the OAUG's board of directors that focused on the user
group's dual missions of education and advocacy.

"We are very pleased with the overwhelming support for
independence," said OAUG President Jeremy Young, who is a
finance business process manager at DHL Worldwide Network
NV in Belgium.

"The most important thing for the board is that we are an
independent organization, and we should remain an
independent organization for the future," Young added.

Oracle had proposed that the OAUG's conferences be folded
into the vendor's own Oracle OpenWorld event, which takes
place each fall. In addition to rejecting that idea, OAUG
members also voted in favor of continuing to hold both the
spring and fall conferences that are now held by the user
group in North America.

The OAUG, which represents users of Oracle's enterprise
resource planning and customer relationship management
applications, also holds annual conferences in Europe and in Asia.

Oracle officials declined to comment on the OAUG's vote.
"Oracle and the OAUG are negotiating about how to run
conferences, and there's nothing to announce on the
Oracle side yet," an Oracle spokeswoman said.

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